Hate “WHAT THE FUCK IS POTATO BREAD?”
3. The TV: We had two TVs in our living room, one little one and one big one. So anytime there were two things on TV, we would vote on what got the big TV and sound, and what got the little TV and mute. Credit and I made it a routine to outvote Hate. I cannot tell you how many times we’d force ourselves to sit there with some awful movie on the big TV, and baseball would be on the small TV, just so we could listen to Hate bitch and moan.
Hate “Are you two fucking serious? Why is “Dawson’s Creek” on?”
Tucker “I like Pacey. He’s just so comforting.”
Credit “Yeah Hate, plus James Van Der Beek looks like Tucker.”
Hate “THIS SHOW IS FUCKING AWFUL! THE FUCKING PIRATES ARE ON, AND YOU TWO FUCKING SKIRTS WANT TO WATCH DAWSONS FUCKING CREEK! FUCK!!!”
Tucker “Hate, we voted fair and square.”
Hate “THIS IS BULLSHIT!!!”
4. The Debates: One of the things Hate, Credit, and I shared was our passion for pointless debates about stupid shit. Didn’t matter whether it was who was the hottest Golden Girl (Blanche), what sport was the hardest (no resolution, but sports not involving physical violence need not apply), or which girl I brought home was the most fucked up (all of them), we were always debating nonsensical shit.
Movies were usually the biggest debate topic though. We would argue endlessly about movies. Here’s the thing with these debates: while Credit and I just engaged in them as purely fun intellectual exercises, Hate took them VERY seriously. If you tried to argue a point that he didn’t like or agree with, it could quickly become intense and personal. For whatever reason, his identity was in many ways tied up with his position on movies, so he’d defend them vigorously. To counteract that over-seriousness, Credit and I would start the most ridiculous debates.
One weekend a Sean Connery movie was on, which started a debate that quickly became intense, because Sean Connery is Hate’s favorite actor:
Credit “Hate, best Sean Connery movie—Untouchables?”
Hate “What? No chance! What about Indiana Jones? The Name of The Rose? Goldfinger? There are so many better ones. Costner ruins that movie.”
Credit “But Credit, that’s the role he won an Oscar for.”
Hate “An Oscar?!? Jesus Christ!! Martin Scorsese hasn’t even won an Oscar, fuck the Oscars!” [Note: this was like 2000 or so, before The Departed]
I was in the bathroom taking a dump. Thanks to the layout of our place and the fact that I usually shit with the door open, I could hear the debate begin. I couldn’t hear all the details, but I didn’t need to. Credit and I are like Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison when it comes to inciting Hate’s rage. I yell out from the bathroom:
Tucker “Hate, what about Medicine Man?”
I don’t know if you’ve seen Medicine Man, but it’s fucking terrible. Arguably the worst Connery movie ever, and easily one of the worst major studio releases of that year. Everything you can imagine is wrong with the movie; for fuck’s sake Lorraine Bracco is supposed to be his sexy sidekick! So yeah, a complete disaster of a movie. Hate immediately bellows back from the other room.
Hate “MEDICINE MAN?!?”
Tucker “Yeah, you know the movie about him being in the jungle and curing cancer and shit!”
Hate “MAX, SHUT THE FUCK UP!!”
Tucker “Did you even see Medicine Man?”
He walks closer to the bathroom and, without actually coming into view of the open shitter door, yells even louder:
Hate “Of course I’ve seen it, ‘I DISCOVERED THE CURE TO THE PLAGUE OF THE 20TH CENTURY AND NOW I’VE LOST IT’—oh Christ, Max shut the fuck up!”
Credit and Hate went back to a more serious discussion.
I finally finish pooping and come out into the living room. Hate is standing in the middle of the room, about five feet from me. In the calmest but most condescending voice I can muster, I look at Hate and say:
Tucker “Hate, I guess you didn’t hear me from the bathroom: What about Medicine Man?”
His face twisted into a knot of sneering rage. He bunched his fist up, cocked it back, and took a step towards me. He immediately got hold of himself, but it was clear as day what had just happened:
For the very briefest split second, Hate was going to take a swing at me. Because of Medicine Man.
Far from getting upset, Credit and I broke down laughing. Hate tried to deny it at first, but Credit had seen it too—Hate’s emotions over Sean Connery had gotten so out of hand, he was going to throw a punch at his friend and roommate.
THE AIRBAG
During the same week Credit and Hate got back to Durham from Italy, we all had to run some errands to get ready for the first semester of our 2L year. The last one took us by the law school. A friend of ours was out front, looking like he was waiting for a ride. He didn’t see us, so Hate lightly tapped the horn to get his attention.
Oh, we got his attention … because the horn wouldn’t stop honking.
AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNN
Credit “Hate, what are you doing?!?”
Hate “IT WON’T STOP!!”
AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNN
Hate hits it a bunch more times, trying to get the horn to unstick. No dice. Mind you, we are right in the middle of Duke’s campus, and Hate can’t stop because the car is in motion, in a street, with cars behind us and in front of us. But this fucking horn won’t stop honking.
AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNN
Tucker “HATE! WHAT THE FUCK!!”
Hate “IT WON’T FUCKING STOP!!!”
Hate starts pounding on the front of his steering wheel, trying to get it to stop. Nope.
AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNN
We are still driving, and every single person is staring at us. Immigrants don’t lay on their horns this much during regional ethnic parades. Go out to your car right now and lay on the horn for ten seconds. It’ll drive you nuts. Now picture us driving around campus with a horn going off like that … except it doesn’t stop … and there is a red-faced bowling ball of anger behind the wheel thrashing back and forth, screaming into a dashboard.
AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNN
We turn a corner, and standing there is a group of at least 50 freshman undergrads doing a campus tour. Every single one is staring at our car in confusion. Credit and I were laughing our asses off before, but the combination of Hate’s anxiety over this horn going off, and the genuinely quizzical expressions of these kids as to why some asshole in an old Nissan Pathfinder would honk like this is too much to handle. I have to grab my dick and pinch it off to stop from pissing myself with laughter.
AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNN
Hate is now completely freaking out. He’s stopped sparring with the steering wheel, and instead has turned to violently ripping the entire cover off the front of it while simultaneously trying to keep control of the car. This doesn’t work well; the car drifts and jumps a curb before Hate can pull it back onto the road. The freshmen’s heads have followed us from the corner all the way down the street, like watching a streaker break out of the middle of a funeral procession.
AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNN
Hate finally gets the entire front cover off the steering wheel and mashes primally on the internal mechanics until the horn stops.
Credit and I have tears rolling down our faces. Hate is totally frazzled, not laughing at all. It takes a long time for all of us to compose ourselves. When we get back to our apartment, I notice something:
Tucker “Hate … where the fuck is your airbag?”
Hate drove an old 1994 Nissan Pathfinder. This was before the airbags were built into the steering column, and instead were basically just slapped onto the front of the steering wheel. I used to have a lot of dirtbag thief friends in high school, so I had a sneaking suspicion about what happened.
Hate
“What do you mean?”
Tucker “Dude, look at all that empty space between the steering wheel cover and the steering column. And see how it says “Airbag” on the cover? There is supposed to be an airbag here. But it’s not here. That’s probably why your horn got stuck.”
Hate “Why would my airbag be missing?”
Tucker “Well, it probably got stolen dude. You can sell those things to shady parts dealers for a lot of money. Did your car get broken into recently?”
Hate kinda looked at the constituent parts for a while, confused. The wheels turned in his head, and it hit him.
Hate “Oh …” [he got a look of painful and pitiful resignation on his face] “… my cousin drove the car this summer when I was in Italy.”
Credit and I broke down in laughter again. That was all he needed to say.
Hate’s cousin couldn’t be more opposite of him—a liar, a thief, a con, everything. The absolute archetype of the prodigal son. Pretty much any time anything is fucked up in Hate’s home life, you need look no further than his cousin to find the explanation.
Tucker “Dude … your cousin stole your airbag … dude!!”
Credit “Wow.”
This was fucked up though. This wasn’t like taking $20 out of his wallet.
This was quite literally putting his life in danger.
Tucker “Are you going to do anything? Confront him?”
Hate “No. He’ll just deny it and act all offended and that I even suggested it was him.”
Tucker “What are you going to do then?”
Hate sat there for a minute and ran through his options, one by one, until he settled on the most depressingly obvious choice.
Hate “Drive around without an airbag I guess.”
Another brick in Hate’s wall of anger …
THE JIMMY JOHN’S INCIDENT
While there was no shortage of little things Credit and I would do to piss Hate off, nothing we ever dreamed up could have had the impact on his repressed, psychotic rage like the events of November of our 3L year.
In law school, everyone interns between their 2L and 3L year at the firms they presumably want to work. After you spend your summer there, you go back to law school for your last year, and then some time in the fall the firm tells you if you have a permanent job offer after you’ve graduated. If you do, then your 3L year is even more of a joke than law school normally is—why worry about anything if you already have a job, right?
Once we all got back to school from our 2L summer associateships, the months went by and the formal offers started rolling in. PWJ and El Bingeroso got theirs before they left their firms for the summer, Jojo, GoldenBoy, Credit, JonBenet, Brownhole, and SlingBlade all got theirs in September or October. That left Hate and me.
Hate was already nervous because other people at his firm got their offers much earlier. Then Halloween passed and he still didn’t have an offer. He was all but catatonically freaked out. Whispers started about his offer. Credit used his peanut butter one day by accident and Hate screamed at him for an hour and broke a lamp. The whispers became louder.
Then he got the letter. He excitedly tore it open to find … no job offer from his firm.
This is awful for a ton of reasons. It means you now have to take class seriously. It means you have no job security. It means you now have to go through the interview process again during 3L year. Which is the mark of Cain both at school (almost no summers from Top Ten law schools don’t get offers) and within law firms (what 3L is interviewing again at a top law firm without an offer from his 2L summer firm?). That is just disastrous. Ultimately, it means you’ve done something really wrong.
Hate did not handle this well. Coming back from our summer jobs, Hate was probably the most excited of the entire group. He’d landed a spot working in the best firm in Philly, and finally, he thought, all the dues-paying and bullshit he’d put up with in his life was paying off. He was going to graduate with a prestigious job, make $125k/year to start, and live in Philadelphia—a great sports town with lots of short girls who would be impressed with a guy who had a job and didn’t hit them. Now, all that shit was gone and he was fucked. Again.
Credit and I steered clear of him for at least a week. He had this seething, Boy-Named-Sue anger that permeated everything he did. He was like a coiled spring, and though we loved provoking his anger into fits of rage, Credit and I were not stupid enough to do it when he might direct it at us personally.
[In fact, no one really gave him much shit, because they were too busy shitting on me. If you read IHTSBIH, you know that story about my 2L summer when I worked at Fenwick & West, and how my firm summarily fired me during the summer because I was such a drunken disaster. Not only that, because my email about the incident leaked out beyond my circle of friends, and pretty much everyone in the legal world knew about it. So like Hate, I came back to Duke for my 3L year without a job, but unlike him I also returned as the laughing stock of the entire legal world.]
About a week after he got the bad news, Hate’s Raging Internalized Emotion reached new and dizzying heights during an episode that has gone down in law school legend and come to be known as “The Jimmy John’s Incident.”
By 3L year, we’d graduated from two TVs in the living room—one big and crappy, one small and crappy—to DirecTV in all three of the apartment’s bedrooms. Why? Three words: NFL Sunday Ticket. Credit was a Jets fan, I’m a Redskins fan, and Hate is a Steelers fan. We needed every game on. And because there were some Sundays where all three teams were playing at the same time, we not only needed three TVs, we needed three receivers too. On Sunday morning like clockwork, we’d bring the TVs out of Credit and Hate’s rooms and put them in the living room, so all of us could watch the games together, like in a sports bar.
Hate had gotten his letter on Monday. It was now Sunday, and for the first time all week, something was going to go right for him: The Steelers were playing, and they were favored, and the Steelers don’t let their fans down. For those three hours, Hate could forget about all his problems and enjoy some football.
He woke up early, set all the TVs up, got all the games on the right channels, and instead of cooking, he decided to treat himself to a delicious and relaxing take-out meal while he watched his team win. He asked us if we wanted anything, then left. Twenty minutes later he came back with his favorite fast food item—a Jimmy John’s Turkey Club Sandwich, complete with sour cream and onion potato chips and an ice-cold Coke to wash it all down.
He’d timed it perfectly, and arrived at the apartment right as all the idiot TV talking heads were finishing up their “analysis.” He sat down on the sofa, placed his bag on the coffee table, and almost like a Japanese tea ceremony, set about placing all of his items in perfect harmony. First he took the Coke out, opened it with a crisp release of CO2, took a sip, put the cap back on (he likes to keep it as carbonated as possible, weird I know) and placed it to the side. Then he took his chips out, opened the bag, popped one in his mouth, and placed the bag to the other side. Finally, he took the sandwich out, unrolled the paper, laid the hoagie out in front of him, and opened it. Hate likes to put his chips on his hoagie and eat them that way, to give it a crunchier texture. He started placing the chips when all of the sudden:
Hate “OH WHAT THE FUCK!! MOTHERFUCKER THAT FUCKING SHIT!!!!”
This was a serious anger eruption, at least 30 seconds of uncontrollable, unintelligible cursing. Credit, his girlfriend Rachel, and I were also in the living room watching TV, and we all kinda jumped at the vitriol in his tone. We didn’t say anything as he went on and on; it was that intense. Finally, we understood the problem:
Hate “I TOLD THAT MOTHERFUCKER TO NOT PUT FUCKING MAYONNAISE ON THE FUCKING SANDWICH AND NOW LOOK AT THIS!!!”
Clear as day, slathered all over one side of his hoagie, was the yellowish white goop. Hate DESPISES mayonnaise. If mayonnaise were a racial minority, Hate would have gone to jail for hate crimes against it years ago. Before we could even real
ly do anything, Hate shot up from the sofa, paused for a second looking for something to strike, but finding no target for his anger, took both his hands, grabbed the coffee table, and flipped it into the air as he released a primal scream.
“FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKK!!”
This was a straight up Incredible Hulk move. Coke bottle, chips, sandwich—everything goes flying. Here was Hate, so angry about the fact that a condiment he didn’t request was on his sandwich, that he FLIPPED OVER A COFFEE TABLE.
And as you might expect, Credit and I completely lost it. To this day, whenever I laugh really hard at something, I compare it to how hard I laughed in that moment, at that incident, because for my life, that is the gold standard of laughter.
As Hate stood there fuming, his lunch spread across the living room, Rachel did not laugh. She was not as accustomed to Hate’s ridiculous outbursts. Instead of laughing or instigating him, she thought the best thing to do was try to help.
Rachel “Oh my God … Hate, are you OK?”
Like any good girlfriend, she immediately got up and started cleaning, asking Hate if he was OK. She put the coffee table back upright and even reassembled his lunch—which was essentially unharmed because the Coke had the lid on, the chips mostly stayed in the bag and the sandwich stayed in its wrapper.